


in the hollow of a hand

by bookhobbit



Category: Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell - Susanna Clarke
Genre: Kink Meme, M/M, Non-Explicit Sex, Present Tense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-15
Updated: 2015-08-15
Packaged: 2018-04-14 19:37:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4577274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookhobbit/pseuds/bookhobbit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An account of a brief interlude between a king and a book.</p>
            </blockquote>





	in the hollow of a hand

**Author's Note:**

> Uh, so, yeah? This was a kink meme prompt and I generally find myself unable to resist trying to make slightly cracky prompts serious, as you've all well learned.
> 
> Not in line with my general headcanons (I like aro ace Vinculus) but it was really fun to write and I sort of liked how it came out OP asked if it would be archived, so! here, take this. Technically smuttier than I generally write and yet still not, in the strictest sense, smut. I've tagged it M for safety.
> 
> Imagine this takes place in a slight AU where Vinculus goes with Stephen and the carrier the whole way.
> 
> ETA: oops I ship this now and it's going in the magic circle preseries.

Stephen Black is finding himself rather conflicted.  
  
He sits out under the stars with an itinerant magician and self-confessed thief, in the fading light of evening, a man who has just finished telling the story of how he used to pretend to speak with the voice of the River Thames.   
  
On the other hand, he is a man who has vexed Norrell immensely and this predisposes Stephen to feel kindly towards him, regardless of the vulgarity of his personal habits.  
  
It is for this reason that Stephen is sharing his supper with the man and having a conversation with him. After meeting on the road they are, he feels, connected in some odd way, not least by the Vinculus's rather odd words.   
  
"Are you married, Nameless King?" says Vinculus conversationally.  
  
"No," said Stephen, thinking of Mrs Brandy.  
  
"Probably just as well. I have five wives." Vinculus steals a piece of cheese from Stephen's cloth.  
  
"Do they not mind having your affections so divided?" asks Stephen.  
  
"Oh, no," says Vinculus. "They say a fifth of the year is quite enough of me to have their fill." He took a swig of a small black bottle. "They pretend they don't know about each other, but they do," he adds, tapping the side of his nose.  
  
Stephen absorbs this information silently. It is yet another reason why he should not trust Vinculus - not just a bigamist, but a - quintigamist, possibly. But he finds that he doesn't care. If the ladies know and do not mind he does not see why he ought to.   
  
"You told me a prophecy about myself," he says abruptly.  
  
"Yes."  
  
"How do you know it?"   
  
Vinculus gestures at the skin between the open halves of his shirt. "It is written upon me," he said.  
  
"That is a prophecy? How can you understand it?"  
  
"I cannot. The only man who could is dead. But he told me what I said, when I was seventeen."   
  
"And all of the things you said..."  
  
"Are written here, yes. In one place or another. Not just my chest." Vinculus winks, shockingly bold. Stephen makes a face, but reaches out without quite meaning to.   
  
"You can't read it, King," says Vinculus cheerfully, "But I invite you to try!"  
  
"I beg your pardon," says Stephen, but his blood is pounding his ears now, looking at the oddly magnetic writing.  
  
Vinculus does not apologize, just takes another swig. "Might be interesting," he says. "Not so often you get to read about yourself." Their eyes meet.  
  
With slow steady hands Stephen unties the man's cravat, pushes up his sleeves, traces the blue lines on his neck and wrists.  
  
"I am part of it," he says.  
  
"You are entwined in every part of it," says Vinculus. "A thread, Nameless King. One of many."  
  
Stephen's hands move to the man's half-bared chest where more markings swirl, and stop again, hesitating.   
  
"I tell you again," says Vinculus with a grin, "You will not read it, but you are welcome to try. My wives will not mind, I assure you."  
  
Stephen looks at him, and kisses him then, with the deliberateness of long desperation. It seems to be the best way of conveying his intent. He should not do this, it is almost certainly unwise. But it is nice, so nice, to be with someone who calls him King, who has his fate written on his skin, who makes him feel like a piece of something greater -   
  
Vinculus pulls back, raises his eyebrows. "Hadn't expected that to work," he says, thoughtfully, before leaning in to kiss Stephen too.  
  
It is...odd. It is not so very much that Stephen wants him. He does not think he is being immodest when he thinks that he could find much more attractive partners than Vinculus. But all the other options are long out of his reach, chased away by insubstantial fairy dangers and razor-sharp dreams.  
  
What he wants, really, is  _contact_ , a reminder that he still exists on this earth and has not faded. There is no danger for Vinculus, a ragged vagabond with an odd spark in his eye - that is not the Gentleman's type. His beard scratches and he tastes of gin and smells - well, not as Stephen had expected. He had expected unwashed human, of which there is a hint, but mostly he smells of rain and grass as if he is slowly becoming part of the surrounding landscape. As if he is not a man, but a shadow of one.  
  
There is an additional hint of old paper at the edges and Stephen does not wish to think of where this comes from.  
  
He peels off Vinculus's clothes piece by piece with methodical determination. He traces each letter, each symbol, tries to reach some kind of instinctive understanding through the way they feel against his fingertips. Under his skin the markings look like veins, the same soft organic blue that shows at Mrs Brandy's wrists and throat. But unlike veins, unlike the tattoos Stephen had taken him for, the letters are not raised. They are flat against the skin like small freckles.  
  
Vinculus patiently waits until he is naked before he starts stripping off Stephen's clothes too. Stephen allows this, does not help him - only lets himself be touched. Vinculus laughs when he is done, and then studies him.  
  
"Not every day you get to see a king in his skin," he says by way of explanation, when Stephen looks curiously at him. "Never have before. It's a right education, it is. I am wondering if the prophecy says anything of this. You would not think he would miss such a detail, would you?"  
  
Stephen does not reply, but only reaches out.  
  
It is - gentler than expected. He had thought perhaps that Vinculus would he rowdy, bawdy, possibly crude - he had dreaded jokes - but instead he maintains the same air of amused exploration. His hands are rough and weathered but do not ever stay in one place, touching here and there, pressing lightly, cataloguing. Stephen has the sense of being memorized. It is not malevolent. It is not entirely unwelcome. It feels like a long time since someone bothered to notice him to such a painstaking degree. Vinculus seems amused above all else, but not particularly by anything about Stephen. More by - the world, for bringing them together. Periodically he laughs and shakes his head.  
  
The letters remain a mystery; Vinculus is right, he cannot read them. But he touches and for a while he forgets a little. For a while, something reaches through the glass to both halves of him, the half here and the one in Lost-hope. It is not, he thinks, the physical sensation; it is the fact that Vinculus knows about the pane of dirty grey glass between him and the rest of the world, about how everything feels like a dream.  
  
How Stephen can tell he knows he is not sure. Perhaps it is because his gaze is so very sharp, perhaps it is the way he touches his mouth as if he can feel the muffling spell - perhaps it is because Vinculus seems to be able to see things that most people cannot. Perhaps this was foretold.  
  
Afterwards he puts his clothes back on neatly, and Vinculus puts his own back on sloppily - so that they are both arranged according to their habits. The air is growing chill, and this is no place to sleep.   
  
He stands up, and looks at Vinculus. After a while he says, "Do you need a place to stay?"  
  
Vinculus grins at him - wolfish again now, more like Stephen expected - and says, "The grass is my mattress and the stars my blanket, Nameless King. But more to the point I have other meetings to find my way to now that this is done." He stands up and starts walking.  
  
Stephen watches him go, thinking of prophecies and kings and of fitting neatly into a predestined place in a history that has already been written.  
  
Then he goes to his inn and to bed.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] in the hollow of a hand](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8688961) by [KeeperofSeeds](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KeeperofSeeds/pseuds/KeeperofSeeds)




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